1. Field
One or more embodiments relate to a cartridge unit that is detachably mounted in an electrophotographic image forming apparatus to supply toner, and an electrophotographic image forming apparatus including the cartridge unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming apparatus using electrophotography prints an image on a recording medium by supplying toner to an electrostatic latent image formed on a photoreceptor to form a visible toner image on the photoreceptor, transferring the visible toner image to the recording medium, and fusing the transferred visible toner image on the recording medium.
An electrophotographic image forming apparatus includes a development cartridge (or a process cartridge) that develops the visible toner image on the photoreceptor and a toner cartridge that contains toner that is to be supplied to the development cartridge. The toner cartridge may be detachable from the electrophotographic image forming apparatus. When the toner contained in the toner cartridge is completely consumed, the toner cartridge may be replaced with a new toner cartridge.
The toner cartridge may include a toner outlet that discharges the toner and a shutter that opens and closes the toner outlet to prevent the toner from being discharged from the toner outlet during a replacement process.
When the toner cartridge is mounted in a direction parallel to a width direction of the recording medium when mounting the toner cartridge, the shutter may be designed to operate in a direction parallel to the direction in which the toner cartridge is mounted.
However, when the direction in which the toner cartridge is mounted is not parallel to the direction in which the shutter operates, the operating structure of the shutter may be complex. When the toner cartridge is reduced in size, the operating structure of the shutter may become even more complex.